One Drop

At the beginning of Wishing Well's documentary on the water crisis in Rwanda, the narrator says that people may view their lives as one drop- as something insignificant- but that like rain when one drop follows another amazing things can happen.

For some, April 30 was just one drop, one day in the line of many other insignificant days, but for Geo, this was the day that he discovered something larger than himself.

On April 30, Geo and ISH were able to attend a reception for His Excellency Paul Kigame and Mrs. Kigame on the campus of Oklahoma Christian University. And later that night they  attended a dinner where His Excellency talked about all the good that Rwanda has to offer and where Wishing Well was given a platform to talk about how clean water is necessary if Rwanda is going to continue to develop. Both boys came home from that evening in shock.

"Mommy, they don't have clean water in Rwandan!" they told me in disbelief.

"Well what should be do about that?" I asked.

"We should give money so they can dig wells." Geo told me

"And when I'm bigger, I'll go and help them dig." ISH added.

My heart melted. But that was only the beginning.

The next week Geo was chosen to be the "Star Student" for his class and was given the job of decorating a poster board with information about himself. One of the pictures he wanted to use was the picture of him with His Excellency and Mrs. Kagame.

"And I can have a bag to show my friends where to put their money, so they can help give water too." Geo said putting a few pennies in the bag so his friends could have an visual aid.

Floored!

My six year old was choosing to use his "about me" project as a platform to help others. (Please note it was also special hat day on the day he took the poster board to school. Hats from Venice are not part of his regular school attire.)

He was so excited when he came home from school on Monday telling me how kids said they were going to bring money. What was even more exciting was that they did!

Geo raised 6.31 (including the few pennies he'd thrown in to start the ball rolling) and then he and ISH gave an additional 2.65 of their own allowance matched "dollar-for-dollar" by me and LK to start early teaching them the value of matching gifts.

And today Geo made the trip to the OC Campus to donate his 11.61 to the Wishing Well's cause.

I'm so proud of Geo, and hope this is the beginning of him seeing creative ways to help others. One drop in the many of his life, I pray.

... though it should be said that the best part of the interaction with Ryan Groves, head of Wishing Well, was when after talking about the wells, looking at a few pictures of watching the video that won the Million Miles contest, Geo turned to Ryan and said "My car smells like sugar." He was right. It did.